


It's Not Like That, Anymore.

by Illyah



Series: Snapshots. [1]
Category: Shameless - Fandom
Genre: Anxiety, Bipolar Disorder, Brother/Sister bonding, College, Everyone gets their shit together, F/M, Fiona gets her shit together, Hospitals, I guess technically protitution, I'm just so bad at tagging, Ian and Mandy are still besties, Lip and Mickey are friends, Lip is still a drunk, Look I promise this is good, M/M, Mickey gets better, Mickey isn't stupid, Multi, PTSD, Sad Ian, Sad Mickey, Season 6 Rewrite, Therapy, Work In Progress, and not being awful, because seriously, but like informed decisions about it, people supporting eachother, positive friendships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2016-12-15
Packaged: 2018-09-08 20:10:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8859349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Illyah/pseuds/Illyah
Summary: Remember all that help that Ian didn't want? What if Mickey decided after the break up that he could really use some of that help himself?This has been sitting on a flash drive for almost a year. I decided I should post it, finally. This is set up and tagged for possible future installments, if you guys want more, I will gladly write more. :)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Again, this isn't complete yet. I'm just trying to figure out if I should keep this going or end it with the next part.

**Mickey and Lana, two weeks post seasons 5**

Shortly after the breakup Mickey learned some really important things. One, you can’t actually be married to someone the government doesn’t think exists. So no more wife. So Mickey felt like he could breathe easy for the first time in almost a year. Shortly after that revelation Mickey found out that Yev wasn’t his, a tearful Lana came to him one night and told him she’d done a DNA test and he was Terry’s. Mickey should have been relieved, but mostly he felt a mix of things. He felt sad, angry, and fiercely protective.

“Why are you telling me this now?” Mickey asked her. She smiled sadly at him.

“Because you are shit husband, but best friend.” She gave him a watery smile. “I am sorry about Orange Boy.” She sounded so genuine. Mickey didn’t really have friends, and honestly the closest thing he had at this point was Lana and Ian’s fucking family, whose faces he couldn’t stand to see right now. He wanted to blow it off and pretend like he didn’t care, but he just shrugged.

“Stop that, I know you give shit.” Lana told him. She sat down next to him and put her head on his shoulder. They weren’t like this-ever. But Mickey really needed a friend and as hard as they’d been on each other, at the end of the day, they were both victims of Terry’s cruelty, and all they had was each other. Wife or not, father or not, Lana was his family and he would do everything he could to keep her safe. Mickey wondered to himself when he’d gone so fucking soft. He knew instantly. When red hair and freckles had invaded his life with his stupid cocky grin and relentless optimism; that’s when.

“You can tell me, you know.” She told him, “how are you feeling, Mishka?”

“Like I’m fucking burning alive; all the goddamn time.” He told her, deciding to go with honestly for once.

“I’m sorry.” And then they just sat there in silence for a long time.

Two weeks later, Mickey realized that Ian wasn’t coming back. And then he got very drunk.

The last thing he was truly conscious of before passing out, was looking at a very concerned Lana and strangely enough an equally concerned Iggy and saying “Lana, I’m sorry-you know-for that day?” For some reason, he desperately needed her to understand. “Was not your fault. I’m sorry too.” She said far too gently. Then Mickey remembered. He’d gotten into a fight on the way home.

Things just went even more downhill from there. Mickey was a mess; it was like Ian tore him apart and suddenly he didn’t remember how to be a person anymore. So he drank; and did drugs, anything to stop the dreams of red hair, bruises, and guns.

 

**Mickey, 6 months post season 5**

He can't remember most of the last six months. He's pretty sure that he'd tried every substance he could think of to get Ian out of his head and he's pretty sure he OD'd last week.

Mickey discovered he was in serious trouble when he realized that the only reason he hadn’t eaten a gun yet is because he was afraid that one day Ian would find out and be disappointed in him and hadn’t he fucked Ian up enough already?

“What can I do for you, sir?” The kind looking woman asked from behind the counter.

“I’m here because I t-think I might need some help.” He said and his voice sounded like it hadn’t been used in days. Mickey looked around anxiously, and sighed. It hadn’t been as hard as he thought, even though this place still fucking creeped him out; he needed to find a way to live with it. All of it; he needed to figure out how to be Mickey without Ian. He looked around, noticing that it wasn’t so bad this time. Not as terrifying as it’d been the last time he was here, but then again, anything was scarier when it meant being away from Ian. Maybe if Ian had stayed here just little longer things would have gone a totally different way.

Mickey read over the intake paperwork, before going to sign at the bottom “I hereby assure that I am of sound mind and judgement…”

“The fuck? If I was of sound fucking mind I wouldn’t be here.” He said out loud, a little of his temper returning. But he signed it anyway;

 “I, Mykah Milkovich, voluntarily commit myself to this institution for the next 72 hours, further treatment options will be discussed at the end of this contract.”

Later, Mickey would think that Ian coming here was the best thing to ever happen to Mickey because Ian being sick allowed him to see therapy and mental health issues without shame, because he would never ever want Ian to feel that way.

Holy shit, two days later Mickey was ready to walk out of his voluntary hold. Taking care of Ian had been NOTHING compared to the time and energy it took to try to take care of himself for the first time in eighteen years.

For the first two weeks, he sat silently in his therapy sessions, staring at the clock above the doctor’s head.

On day fifteen, something changed. Mickey looked the doctor straight in the eye and started with something easy. “I graduated from high school when I was 14. Everyone thinks I dropped out, but I didn’t.” The doctor cocked an eyebrow at him.

“My first day, you asked me to tell you something about me that no one knows. I graduated from high school when I was 14.”

Everything was different after that day. His doctor arranged for Mickey to enroll in online community college classes that could be done in the hospital. Even lending him a computer to use; it was stupid and he knew it, but the first time he really thought he might be getting better was when they came at the usual time to take the computer back, and instead, gave him the power cord.

Lana visited him once a week. He smiled sheepishly when he told her about the power cord, feeling like a five year old bringing home an art project, but she just hugged him and told him she was proud of him.

Lana was much softer than she wanted people to believe, kind of like him in that way. He’d always thought-well for the last year at least, that it would always be him signing Ian into hospitals, not Lana signing him in, but he’d finally gone to her one day and said, “I don’t want to kill myself in this house. I don’t fucking want to die here.” She checked him in the next day.

Mickey sat there two months into his stay and considered just how far he’d fallen. He wanted to be better _right then_. But he knew it didn’t work that way, you had to put in the work. For someone who’d been used to instant gratification, and huge scores being the things that he worked for and was proud of, he was now working harder than he ever had in his life and the fucking payoff was convincing people he didn’t want to strangle himself with the power cord of his computer. What a fucking let down. He wasn’t sure whether this would have disappointed his father more or less than the fact that his son fell in love with a boy.

He talked about it the next day in therapy.  He talked about everything in therapy. About Terry, about his mom, about Ian, about being gay; about Lana and Yev, about Mandy and Iggy.

7 months after he arrived, Mickey was released with a therapy plan, medication and two semesters of college under his belt; As well as an acceptance and scholarship from University of Chicago. Lana and Yev were there to pick him up, Lana had brought Yev to visit Mickey after his initial 72 hours were up, after they’d talked about what they thought was best, and decided that he would check himself in for at least six months and try to work through the staggering amount of trauma, and crippling self-loathing Terry had managed to inflict on him.

When he left he felt like a different person. He still had that rough Southside edge and the instinct to hustle, but he suspected that it would never change. But he felt different. He didn’t like himself, but he’d managed to rid himself of the most vicious parts of his self-loathing; most of the time.

He smiled warmly at Lana before she and Yev ran over and jumped all over him. “Come!” she said. “We go to Alibi! Is tradition. Do not worry, I tell them you are in jail.” She grinned. He couldn’t help but laugh, of course she’d find a way to make him seem like a badass.

“So,” he nudged her shoulder, “how long do you think it’ll take for them to recognize me?” he gestured to his hair which was a light shade of blonde. Mandy and Mickey’s mother had blonde hair and her two youngest children had both inherited it. After their Mom died, Mandy started dying her hair, hoping it would help Terry keep them straight and Mickey dyed his to support her, even though it ended up being a good thing for him in the end. Terry didn’t hit him as much when he didn’t look so much like Mom. Besides, Mickey knew as soon as his mother was gone, being a blonde-haired-blue-eyed Milkovich was only going to be acceptable for Mandy.

With Terry in the clink and Mandy out of state (Lana had told him she was moving back finally done with Kenyatta), he didn’t bother anymore. He liked it, anyway. It felt different, kind of like a new start.

Mickey was so very, very glad they decided to go to The Alibi. They walked in to find Frank at the bar and Kev behind it surrounded by their usual crowd of day-drinkers and people who’d just gotten off of work. Frank swallowed audibly.

“Is that Mickey?” He asked Kev, who shot a glance in Mickey’s direction. “Mickey who?” He asked and this felt familiar to Mickey somehow.

“Don’t give me ‘Mickey fucking Who’!” he shouted. “Mickey Milkovich. Shit, he’s gonna kill me.” He whispered something in Kev’s ear.

“Oh shit! Hey Mick!” Kev came around the bar and pulled him into a one armed hug, while Frank desperately ran into the bathroom.

“Hey Kev. What’s up with Frank?” Kev chuckled. “Says he caught you in a compromising position and now you want to kill him.” Mickey laughed his ass off, for the first time in months. He finally regained his composure, and asked “Yeah, he caught me with Ian a couple years ago; you didn’t think to just tell him I came out a long ass time ago?”

“But Mick, it’s so much more fun this way.” Kev pled.

They spent all night laughing and talking, while Frank hid in the bathroom, terrified. It was a small victory, and more than a little malicious. But he was feeling relaxed by the end of the night, he couldn’t drink as much as he used to, because of his meds, but that was fine. So right before last call, he found Frank. “I swear I didn’t tell anyone, Mickey.” He flinched like he was ready for the punch. Mickey snorted, “Relax Frank. I came out years ago.” Frank looked suspicious. He turned back to the bar, “Yo, how many of you knew I was gay before right now?” Almost everyone’s hands went up. “Get your ass out here and get a drink.”

Jesus fucking Christ, Mickey thought to himself, how fucking many times was he going to have to come out in this fucking bar. He answered himself right away. As many as it took. He was exhausted from all the hiding and he was out of the damn closet _finally,_ and he wasn’t going back in, not for fucking anything. And if he had to crack a few extra skulls to prove he wasn’t a bitch, then that’d just be fucking peachy.

Mandy was sitting on his bed waiting for him when he got home. “I know you didn’t go to prison, so where the fuck have you been, Goldilocks?”

Mickey took a deep breath, they’d talked about this in therapy, the need to be honest and open and communicate. That didn’t mean he’d suddenly gotten better at it. It just meant that now he understood it.

“Yeah,” he said, “We probably have some things we need to talk about.” He missed the fuck out of his sister, and was so glad she’d finally gotten rid of her shithead of a boyfriend, and moved back home. He was less thrilled that she’d fucked Lip. He relaxed when she promised not to even mention him to Lip, ever. He sighed. He wasn’t sure what her reaction was going to be.

He sighed to himself, “I spent the last seven months in a psychiatric hospital.” It wasn’t as hard to say as he thought it was going to be. “I was so bad Mands, you don’t even know.” He shook his head.

“Oh Jesus, Mick, what did Terry do to you?” She sounded horrified.

“The worst, Mands, the fucking worst.” He couldn’t talk about this with her-not yet.

“So, douchebag, tell me about Mouth, last I heard he was fucking some old lady professor.” He poked her in the side.

“That was like a year ago, Assface. Anyway, we just fucked. I still kinda can’t stand him on a basic level. But his dick’s like fucking gold.”

Mickey laughed. “Gallaghers.” She smirked, “I know, right? I kind of hate their faces.”

“I can’t stay here.” He told her after a little while. “I got a chance to get out of here.” He pulled out the envelope he’d received in the mail. “An’ if I get out I figure I can get you out.” He told her. She opened the envelope, and gasped. “Holy shit, Mick! I’m so fucking proud of you!” She jumped at him wrapping her arms around his neck.

He wanted to ask if they were going to be okay with him away but then he realized he’d already been away and they’d been fine. “I’ll find a job and bring home money whenever I can.” He promised her.

Mickey couldn’t believe it when he’d gotten the letter. He’d applied to the university because his therapist suggested it, along with some paperwork that basically said he was broker than broke and two months later a letter had shown up accepting him to the university with financial aid.

He was still waiting for everything to fall apart, and was pleasantly surprised when it didn’t. He passed his classes that first semester with flying colors and even managed to get a job waiting tables at some fancy restaurant near campus, as long as he promised to keep his knuckles covered.

All in all, things were pretty good. Right up until he walked into his Anthropology class. It was the first day of fall semester, and Lana and Mandy had picked out this class for him, something about sexuality and society. They had insisted that it wasn’t because he was gay, it was because of feminism or someshit and didn’t he want them to have the same rights as him? He put his hands up in defeat and just agreed to take the damn class. He still thought it was about the gay thing.

Anyway, everything was fine until attendance got called. “Gallagher, Philip, Hall, Scott, Milkovich, Mykah.” Mickey immediately feels himself tense up, locking eyes with Lip who questions him with an eyebrow. He looks like he doesn’t even recognize Mickey and he laughs, looking down at what he’s wearing. Skinny jeans, grey Henley, grey beanie, short blonde hair peeking out around it, he just stared back and shrugged. He hadn’t seen Lip in over a year and a half. They walked together when class got out, silent until Lip handed Mickey a smoke and said, apropos of nothing, “I always thought your name was Michael.” Mickey snorted. “Didn’t you go to ChiPoly the last time I saw you?” Mickey asked.

“Yeah, took a year and a half off for-just family stuff, lost my scholarship and shit came here instead. What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Fair. It’s been a weird year and a half, but-I go here, the fuck’s it to you?” He couldn’t help himself. Lip brought the Southside douchebag in him back with a fucking force.

“And to think, we were so fucking close to having a civil conversation.” Lip tutted at him.

“Shit, I have to go. I have Calc two.” He and Lip turned to go their separate ways, but Mickey turned back around, because he had to, he needed to make sure. “Lip. Don’t tell him where I am. I don’t know if he cares anymore and I don’t want to, but just, please don’t say anything.”

Lip cocked his head to the side, considering, “Fair. I owe you that much.”


End file.
